Killing a camel to earn a carbon credit may seem a curious way to tackle climate change, but one country is poised to allow investors to do precisely that.

The camel culling plan is one of the first to arise under the Australian government’s new “carbon farming initiative”, a scheme that lets farmers or investors claim carbon credits if they can show they have cut greenhouse gas emissions.

Such emissions are plentiful in Australia’s desert centre thanks to the region’s large population of feral camels, a legacy of the herds introduced in the 19th century to help settle the continent’s interior.

More than 1m camels are now believed to be roaming across the Australian outback – one of the biggest camel populations in the world – and each emits methane, a greenhouse gas significantly more potent than carbon dioxide.

“It’s one of those ‘out of sight, out of mind’ problems,” said Tim Moore, managing director of Northwest Carbon, an Adelaide-based carbon project developer whose culling plan is one of only three proposals to have been accepted for official assessment by the carbon farming initiative so far.